


Mark It Up

by Hermit9



Series: Sprawling Chaos [4]
Category: Shadowrun, Supernatural
Genre: Blindfolds, Broken Bones, Cas is having a bad week, Childbirth, Domestic Fluff, Fainting, Happy Ending, Medical Misery, Medical Procedures, Multi, OFC sex worker, Oral Sex, Pegging, Shibari, Sickness, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, hints of jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21885976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: Dean was planning something.Castiel knew this because Dean was broadcasting it as loud as the darkened skies announced the wind of the storm and as wide as the news cycle when it went for the spin. Dean was planning something, and Castiel didn't know what it was.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Sprawling Chaos [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/905046
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Mark It Up

**Author's Note:**

> If I missed any tag, please let me know! 
> 
> Sequel to [Come On and Try my New Parts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179684). Set somewhere during [Chase the Morning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21034718/chapters/50031758).
> 
> Beta by the incomparable FestiveFerret! With help from BawdyBeans and Bookscorpion!

Dean was planning something.

Castiel knew this because Dean was broadcasting it as loud as the darkened skies announced the wind of the storm and as wide as the news cycle when it went for the spin. Dean was planning something, and Castiel didn't know what it was.

He had tried to ask but had gotten blatantly guilty kisses in return. A giggle, almost, once. Sam had shrugged and shook his head, and Castiel knew better than to ask Bobby. For some things, you didn't go running to your lover’s father. Or so he’d been told.

So Castiel waited until Dean was ready to play his card. He had plenty on his plate in the meantime: too many patients, never enough supplies, the impossible task of saying “no more,” of choosing who dies because he cannot save them. 

Between one quiet apocalypse and the next, Castiel forgot.

“Come with me,” said Dean. 

It was a bright morning that had stretched on for far too long already. Castiel could feel in his bones the passing of the night and the mocking light of the sun outside the black-out mural of the clinic. There was a girl in the treatment room behind him, too young to be wanting children of her own and yet saddled with one for the rest of her days. Her fear had seeped into everything, down to Castiel’s clothes and under his fingernails. 

“Not now,” he answered. 

Dean hummed and kissed the top of his head, not the forehead that had gotten smeared but the very top, like placing down a crown. “I brought you a change of clothes, some food,” he said. “Have the water at least. For me?”

Castiel was sure he nodded, or spoke, or growled. There was a cry behind the closed door, too weak and too filled with pain. Its anger matched anger found in older voices, in the other needs, bleeding all around Cas. Dean squeezed his arm and walked out, into the sun. The door closed, and there was so much left to do. “Thank you,” he said to the ghost of warmth against his skin.

“ _When can you get here?_ ” Castiel shifted the child to his left arm, trying not to wince at the way he flopped listlessly with the movement. His skin was clammy, the fever having wrung what it could of sweat and energy; the coughing had already taken the lion’s share. The mom wasn’t doing much better, fever spiking and shaking apart from the coughing. 

There was an answer on the line, the words as disappointing as they were expected. 

“ _That won’t be sufficient. Do the best you can.”_ Castiel cut the call with a sigh. He set the child down on the examination table, glancing at the charts Rachel had pulled, trying to find his name. Castiel was tired, bone-weary enough not to feel bad at not remembering patients’ names. He glanced out of the room, taking a headcount of the waiting room. There were too many, too many with impaired breathing, too many in close contact. This was an epidemic brewing and there wasn’t enough whooping cough vaccine available on the black market to prevent it. It was old, barely worth anything on the legal market and not rewarding enough as a target for resale. There was better money to be made from antibiotics and painkillers, always the painkillers.

“ _Hey Cas, what’s up?”_ Dean’s voice was forcefully happy and whiskey burnt through the comlink, mapping in Castiel’s mind over both the “at home” and “available” areas of Dean’s life. 

“ _I have a job for you, Squirrel_ ,” he answered as he stepped into the mostly empty supply closet and closed the door. “ _Won’t pay much._ ” 

“ _Don’t sweat it. What do you need?_ ” There was no hesitation in the answer, no undercurrent of resentment. Castiel allowed himself to feel relief, if not hope. Hope could come later when the best course of action didn’t involve counting the dead.

So he told Dean about the vaccines. 

The next morning a green cooler stuffed with dry ice was left on the check-in counter. The door was locked, the lights out. There was an easily disposable note on top, with a blocky lettered message written with one of the clinic’s pens. 

“ _As you wish,_ ” it read. Castiel brushed his lips on it as he closed his eyes, then fed the note to the office shredder. 

Cas stopped before pushing the door open. In part, to glance over the charts covered with short-hand, written hastily enough that it was probably considered proper encryption. In part, so he could raise the black and white printout from the X-Ray against the one good neon tube, squinting to track the breaks and fractures and pick them apart from cracks in the ceiling and artifacts in the film. But mostly, he stopped so he could swallow the last bite of the meal replacement bar, under chewed and lumpy sawdust all the way down. It itched its way down his throat, but it would sit in his stomach like lead for at least an hour and stabilize his blood sugar for hopefully two. 

The patient was trying very hard not to make a noise, through focused open-mouthed breaths that had long since turned his lips dried and chapped. Not that there was any other way he could have tried for zen, eyes closed from the swelling and nose broken — out of alignment enough to impair airflow. Castiel had a begrudging respect for mind over matter and the control it took.

“Let’s reduce him,” he told Rachel as he walked into the examination room. “The x-ray for the broken orbital doesn’t worry me too much, you can handle the rest of this on your own.” 

“Boss, wait—” Rachel tried to interject, in vain. 

“Can you brace his upper arm?” 

He didn’t wait for an answer, circling into position. Rachel growled under her breath and exhaled in annoyance, but it had been her default mode for days. Maybe weeks. She was as protective as Dean, in her own ways. Probably more, depending on the metric one used. Castiel grabbed the patient’s arm firmly, braced to pull his weight into the shift, one long movement to snap the elbow into its proper place. It should have been easy enough, a stretch and a pop and then off to the next patient, maybe try to clear a few light cases from the waiting room to give an illusion of progress. 

Instead, the man screamed, buckling against Rachel’s hold and clear off the table. Whatever calm he’d found was gone, chased by screams that might have been howls. 

“What the hell, Rachel?” Castiel barked, focusing the shreds of his self-control to stop himself from dropping the man’s arm like hot coals. “Why didn’t you give him something for the pain? He should have been anesthetized before I even walked in.” 

“I did,” she screamed back, pointing with her chin at the surgical tray on the table. Somehow she was holding the patient down so he wouldn’t aggravate his wounds despite being half his size. Her medical knowledge was only half the reason Castiel had hired her. Her martial prowess and impeccable form made up much of the remaining half. The tray was crowded with nearly a dozen single-use syringes and the discarded glass corpses of four morphine vials. “If I give him any more, he's going to go into respiratory arrest.” 

Castiel ran the numbers quickly. “20mg? In less than an hour?” he asked Rachel without expecting an answer. Then, to the patient, “how much opioids do you consume just to maintain baseline function?”

“I—” the man said between grunting breaths “—don’t touch drugs. Never have. Lost my brother to junk.” 

Castiel met Rachel’s eyes over the man’s shoulder. That was possibly the worst answer he could have given. A habitual addict with a built-up resistance they could have uncomfortably explained. But someone who was opioid naïve should have been unconscious from the drugs, if not well on their way to death.

“Drek,” they both said out loud at the same time. 

“Do we have any more in stock?” Castiel asked, once he could form words over the stupefaction again. 

“Same lot,” Rachel answered. She didn’t need to add more, painting a picture in two words. Castiel trusted her with both eyes closed, she was too driven, too loyal to be diverting the morphine. So either someone else had gotten into the clinic’s supply, and they would have to assume everything else had been adulterated, or the entire supply was a write-off. 

“Little help?” gasped the man, still restrained and paler than he had been when Castiel had walked in. 

Resisting the eye roll was a feat Castiel felt should be commended. He knew he was just being petty now, that it wasn’t really the patient’s fault, at least as far as the morphine situation went. He was fairly certain that the fistfight injuries were at least partially earned. Still, he let his sight slip, letting go of the physical world and its limitation, letting himself see more. The web of pain across bones on his patient, the tendrils of fear and anger and desperation that tangled his emotions. They echoed the exhausted muted hues from Rachel, the cold grey of despair that circled the event horizon of giving up on even trying. Castiel knew his own aura would be tainted with it as well, worn thin from the relentlessness of having to draw in breath after breath. It permeated much of the Barrens, like the ever-present ashen rain, a side effect from the slow grinding down of souls by the heel of too many invisible boots. 

Castiel snarled. The thing about nihilism, he knew, was that it was contagious. It fed and grew until it felt soft and warm like worn sneakers and a blanket draped on your shoulders. Until it felt like all the alternatives were scary and strange. To hell with it. 

He reached blindly, feeling the ache through his back as great shadow wings beat in the empty air. Rachel backed away out of habit not awe, a soft, practiced dance that came with equally familiar threads of disapproval. Castiel couldn’t afford to be distracted by the judgement there. Sometimes, magic was as easy as breath, as easy as letting water flow over you and directing the current with the angle of an arm and the slant of a wrist. Sometimes, it was like funnelling a tsunami, all rage and turmoil and frothing chaos through the too-small space of your soul and directing that energy through a touch. Holding on long enough to make that connection and to rewrite a tiny, insignificant, part of the universe to your will. 

Castiel gritted his teeth and watched as the tendon snapped the bones back into place, knitting and rebuilding as they did. The bones themselves joined together like sparkling magnets, draining the hematoma around the eye socket, undoing the harm until no trace was left, a canvas made blank once more. He let his arm drop, too heavy now, but the rushing of the water didn’t recede, growling in his head as it drowned the world and even some of the pain.

At some point on his way down to the floor, Castiel passed out. 

The sheets were soft and smelled of dried herbs, muted into a grassy anonymous note. Castiel frowned, deepening the darkness behind his lids and sending starbursts across his vision. This was wrong. There should bleach and antiseptic, sturdier material. The clinic’s cots were covered in what was properly sold as heavy-duty canvas and then abused into being pliable. They were never cotton soft. Castiel rolled on his back — noting that he didn’t fall down which probably meant something — throwing an arm over his eyes by reflex. Quiet. He could hear the soft glass and metal tinkling above him, moving on strings from the ever-present draft of the window. Home. Somehow, he was home.

The blinds had been drawn across the window, filtering the daylight into a warm presence instead of an attack. The glass baubles caught the light and painted the room in greens and blues: soothing, gentle colours. He was alone in the room, stripped out of the clothes he’d been wearing and tucked under the sheets. He turned his head and felt a smile pulling at his lips. Clean and folded loungewear were on the dresser next to a large travel mug. It would hold coffee, strong and sweetened with enough condensed milk to make a dentist cry. 

When Castiel walked out of the bedroom, he found he was alone. There were traces of Dean having been in the space, notably the lack of dust on tables and shelves. The coffee maker was on a warming pattern, the carafe half full, next to a plate of snacks. It wasn’t much, but Castiel knew his pantry had been empty for weeks. He couldn’t remember when the last time he’d gone on a supply run was. Still, there was a granola bar broken into bite-size pieces, a few digestive cookies and a single square of chocolate, wrapped in foil. 

Later, Dean found him curled up on the large chair in the living room, feet propped up on the ottoman that could use reupholstering, dozing more than reading a book he’d already dog-eared to death.

“Hey,” said Dean softly, bending to kiss his forehead and then stepping away. “Feeling better?”

“Humm,” answered Castiel. He shrugged off the blanket, letting go of the book. He was warm and pleasantly floating and had no intention of changing either of those things. “How long were you gone?”

“Not long. There are noodles in the kitchen. And tea.”

“Tea.”

“Alright. I’ll bring that up.” 

Most of the afternoon was spent resting. Castiel grazed on the food Dean had brought, drank the tea that was offered. Mostly, he let himself soak in the quietness, feeding a part of his soul like water feeds the parched ground after a draught. He couldn’t have said when had been the last time that, for a whole day, no demands were being made of him. There were no emergencies, no expectations, no calls. He slept, meditated, spent an hour looking at the sun as it set amongst the sharp edges of the barrens.

“Think you’re up to facing the world?” Dean asked, leaning against the hallway’s wall. Castiel turned to look at him, with his full attention for the first time since waking up. The dying light painted Dean in angles and the shadows made the green of his eyes deeper. “I’d really love to take you out on that date now. Or we can stay in, but you’re going to have to give me an hour or so to find something to feed you.”

“Now?” 

“I’ve been trying to set up a date night for a while. You were busy, it’s cool. But yeah. I wanted you to myself, dinner, wine.”

“Courtship, you mean.”

“Ah, forget it,” Dean ran a hand down his face. “I’ll just go grab some more take-out, we can stay here, I don’t mind.”

Castiel frowned. There was hurt radiating from Dean, old, stale. Fraying into the edges of even older abandonment wounds. “No,” he said out loud. “I think... I think I would like to be invited to a seduction.”

“Yeah?” Dean’s smile was brighter than the sun, flushing his aura with warmth and yearning. “We'd better get dressed.” 

Castiel supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when Dean pulled into the familiar parking lot of the White Phoenix. He had hoped to be, to be made to discover a new pearl of light in the fabric of the city. Here was safe and worn, an explored and fixed point in both time and space. He understood the choice of a comfort zone destination, but for the first time in — maybe — years, it chafed at him. 

Being regulars did have its perks, however. The evening was young and so the line outside the door was long and boisterous, filled with families and other couples out in their finest livery. A large group was clustered around a helium balloon, the bright foil spinning and catching the light as its string was passed hand to hand. Anniversary, Castiel gathered, but he couldn’t read the number on the balloon. Gadreel looked up as the doors of the Impala creaked shut, already waving them through with a tilt of the chin. Dean put a hand on the small of Castiel’s back, guiding him as if he’d sensed the distraction. It was easy to follow that push, to stop and greet Gadreel properly before stepping past him, letting the other man read both of their auras with a wink and a smile. Easy to avoid the high chairs of the bar and to sit in the more private booth and then let it make the world fade away.

“Tenth,” Castiel said out loud.

“What?” 

“Tin. Tenth anniversary.” He shook his head and blinked a few times to make his eyes focus on the menu. The wards inside and around the Phoenix itched like wool. “Outside. The family. They were celebrating the tenth anniversary of a union.” 

Something flickered on the edge of Dean’s eye, on the curve of his smile, but by the time Castiel looked up, it was gone. They ordered, conservatively, and savoured the food when it came. Service was slower than usual, carving out plenty of time for Castiel to catch Dean looking forlornly at the more elaborate plates and visibly salivate at the salmon kappa that was brought to the table next to them. Castiel chuckled and laced their fingers together on the tabletop. The pace also gave them time to chitchat and to sit in companionable silence. 

The dessert course brought indulgent discontent.

The seat of the booth creaked and the hair on Castiel’s neck stood up. Both were fully intended effects, carefully calculated. The woman carried a very studied impression of flippancy and coyness, belied by the hunger in her eyes and the self-satisfied grin that matched it. She set a plate on the table, precisely centred. It held a slice of cake, if the confection could be called cake, made of layers of dense chocolate mousse and crispy praline nuts.

“Salted caramel,” she said with a purr. “On the house for you, honey.” 

She flowed into the booth next to Dean, well into his personal space, pressing along the warmth of him from his thigh to his shoulder. She raised an eyebrow, pointedly, at Castiel. A dare, a gambit, goading him into making a move.

“That’s... uh,” Dean said, flustered. “That’s really kind, Muse, but there’s no need for—”

Castiel tilted his head to take her in, from the shoulder-length strawberry blond hair and the storm-grey sky of her eyes. She was pretty, street sharp, a survivor, but that alone would not have made him sit uneasily. He let his sight extend beyond the visible spectrum. 

And blinked a few times. 

“Hush now, the grown-ups are talking,” she stage whispered, cutting Dean off. 

There was the outline of a woman in the astral, but it was imprecise and reminded Castiel of both an artist’s sketch and a stretched soap bubble. Within the outline was nothing human, nothing properly alive. Mercury and smoke swirled, pulling and swelling into many shapes and faces — some male, some female, most in the spectrum in between. Only the emotions read as real: amusement, fondness, a sharp slice of possessiveness.

Dean had fallen silent though strange distress flowed from him. 

“I am glad to see you two talked things out.” Muse picked up his fork and, slowly, cut a bite out of the cake. She brought it to Dean’s lips, his mouth opening without hesitation. As if by reflex, as if the entire exchange wasn't — at all — strange and predatory. “Good boy,” she said as he took the cake from the tines. 

The pulse of satisfaction from Dean had nothing to do with food and everything to do with her words. It would match the blush on his cheeks, the bite at his inner lip. Castiel’s concentration shattered, making the ethereal shift out of sight, and the contrast made the mundane reality all that much sharper. Dean’s eyes were downcast, soft, though the rest of his body language was halfway conflicted.

Castiel growled. An animalistic growl, an expression of instinct and feelings he hadn’t needed to name before. He didn’t mind that Dean took others to his bed, not in the times they were apart or even when they were together. It was skin and hormones and it felt good, grounded him, made him feel alive. But this. This he did not share. The softness in Dean, the depths of his desire to be good and the haze it drew over his eyes. The submission belonged to Castiel and to Castiel alone. 

“There you are,” said Muse, settling back into the booth’s pillows. Her smile had grown into a wide and genuine, victorious thing. “Glad to finally meet you, Castiel.”

Muse’s room was the same, though the sheets this time were a pale blue, the kind of colour the trid tried very hard to frame as belonging to a sea-side cottage. Dean was standing with his head bowed, swallowing around the small army of regrets that poured from his brain and threatened to block his breathing. How could he have been such a glaring idiot? He’d ruined everything and had only himself to blame. Any sane person would have found a different restaurant, or called ahead, made arrangements and considered the fallout. He’d walked into this blindly, chasing a stupid dream down a minefield. From the moment the booth had creaked from her weight, he’d expected Cas to walk out and be done with him. It would have been all he deserved.

Which made standing, naked, in the open space of Muse’s room all the more confusing. 

There was a shift and the sound of settling fabric behind him, but if the others were still talking they’d taken it to comlinks and left him out of the loop. He imagined their gaze on him, straightened his back and shoulders, sucked in the soft bulge of his abdomen self consciously. On the exhale, he convinced himself that he wasn’t being watched at all, the fact that he was being ignored crafted as a punishment. It worked. 

A warm hand covered his shoulder, heavy, and squeezed a bit at the spot where the muscle and tendon met. “Do you want a physical signal?” Cas whispered against his ear. He’d removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves, heat radiating from him through the thin cotton and the from the exposed skin. 

Dean started to shrug, tongue-tied by the swirl of emotions that still churned within his gut. Humiliation, fear, regret, a not insignificant presence of arousal being resparked by the sudden touch. Then, realizing this was exactly why Cas was asking, nodded. 

“Good. You’re doing good,” said Cas as he pressed something into Dean’s hand. A simple ring, two keys, and the worn, smooth silver of the bullet he used as a charm. Baby’s keys, keeping him safe. Dean would have smiled if he wasn’t trying to remember which pocket they had been in, and how he’d folded his clothes and gear when he’d taken them out. 

A dragging sound made him flinch, heavy canvas against the wood of the floor. “Would this be satisfactory?” asked Muse, still maddeningly out of sight. 

Castiel hummed, considering, then answered with a curt, “Yes.” He walked around Dean, keeping his hand on his shoulder as a grounding contact until he was standing in front of him. For a long moment, he just stood there, staring into Dean’s eyes, until the urge to blink was but a burning repressed impression. Then he leaned down and claimed Dean’s mouth in a hard filthy kiss, over too fast but leaving Dean breathless. 

“Walk backward until you reach the bed, then settle in the middle, on your back,” Cas said, with a nip at Dean’s lip.

The bed was three steps behind Dean, but it took him six to cross the distance, suddenly unsure and unbalanced. Maybe showing off a bit, cocking his hip a bit more than needed, chin lifted to expose his neck. He only moved his hands from where he’d crossed them at the small of his back when his calves hit the bed, leveraging to pull himself on the bed. The mattress sunk under his weight, memory foam flexing between his fingers, pressing the imprint of the keys into his palm. 

He could see Muse now, standing by the foot of the bed and slowly running her tongue over her lips as she slowly raked her eyes over his body. She was wearing a satin-looking dress with thin straps. It wasn’t her uniform when hunting out in the lounge or anything he’d seen her wear for clients before. Her eyes and hair were unchanged, and Dean realized that for the first time she was here with him as herself not as a fantasy. It thrilled him, that he was being granted something she didn’t hand out frivolously. That, at some level, Muse wanted _him_ , not just the steady wire of credits. 

She winked at him and bent down, lifting a duffle bag Dean hadn’t spotted before and upending it to the left of him on the bed. Bundles of ropes spilled out, in various lengths and diameters, far more than would be required to immobilize him. They were stained a deep maroon red, contrasting with the sheets.

“Would you do the honours,” she asked Cas, waving over the ropes and Dean both, as if she was declaring the buffet at a reception to be open. From the expression that flew across Cas’ face, she just had. 

Castiel grabbed a bundle, uncoiling it and running the rope through his hands to soften it. It smelled earthy and clean, natural fibres, not the nylon Dean had expected. Cas knee crawled until he was on the other side of Dean, still half-dressed in his rolled-up sleeves and suit pants. Dean couldn’t help but take in the bulge of Castiel’s arousal through the thin fabric of the latter and grinned. Cas answered the smile and ran one of his hands up and down Dean’s leg, scratching lightly at his inner thigh. He grabbed at his ankle on the third pass, pulling it up until the heel of Dean’s foot rested at the tender crease of his ass. 

“Don’t move,” Cas said with his gravel voice. He kissed the top of Dean’s knee to soften the order. He used the bight of the rope to anchor it to Dean’s ankle then looped around Dean’s leg in a spiral pattern. He went slow as if making sure his movements were clear, from the way he pulled harder against the muscles of the thigh and was careful not to bruise over the more sensitive shin. When he reached just below the knee he started cinching the rope with crossing knots, down the outside of Dean’s leg and then up the inner side. He secured the and of the rope with a firm pull and backed away by a few inches. 

Before Dean could complain about the sudden abandonment, a hand landed on his left ankle. Muse waited until he met her eye and nodded before running her hand up his leg, in the same slow pattern Cas had taken. She was mimicking him exactly, the speed, the pressure, the exact same path in a mirror effect. By the time she was cinching the cross over knots Dean knew he was in trouble. For one, the fear had been all but burnt away by the desire in his veins and he was fully hard with what amounted to very little actual touch. The ties left him open and on display, vulnerable, and feeling a bit slutty. It was a heady mix that he was finding out he liked more than expected. For two, there were a lot of ropes left and something in the languid movements of both Cas and Muse let him know they intended to use every last inch of it as a metaphorical dick measuring contest. 

Cas leaned to kiss him, claiming his mouth and his tongue. He swallowed around the sudden moany cry when Muse reached to pinch and roll one of his nipples, before letting her hand wander across his chest and belly. Neither of them were showing any promise of touching his cock anytime soon.

“Up, on your knees,” said Cas when he backed out of the kiss, about ten seconds short of Dean blacking out from the lack of oxygen. 

Taking a deep breath, Dean rolled over to his stomach then pushed himself upright until he was sitting on his bound leg. He shuffled a bit to regain the center of the bed. Two sets of hands flew over his legs and feet, making sure there was no loss of circulation and nothing pinched. The _care_ in the touch made a new, different, heat blossom in Dean.

“Close your eyes,” said Cas, once he’d settled. His hand was at the small of Dean’s back, rubbing soothing circles there. Dean let his lids close, leaning into the touch as he did to remind himself that this was as safe a place as he was likely to find in the Barrens. 

Something a bit scratchy settled over his face, bringing more of the earthy, fibre scent with it. More rope, Dean realized. Being looped and carefully pulled across his eyes into a blindfold. It wouldn’t be lightproof, but the promise of the abrasion should he try to open his eyes was enough of a deterrent. 

“Oooh, that’s nice. Works well with his blush,” Muse said, amused.

Cas hummed in agreement and ran his hand up Dean’s spine and up to his right arm, grabbing the limb to manipulate it into place. Muse mirrored it with his left arm, pausing to trace at the bullet-shaped scar on his shoulder. Both arms were pulled behind his back, straight but not touching, with wrists facing each other. 

There was a pause and ripples of movement in the mattress, barely felt motion transfer, then loops of ropes were brought up his arms and settled over his shoulders. He could feel the knot settling between his shoulder blades and the top of his spine. Someone, Muse, was shifting the way the rope settled on his left shoulder, making sure it avoided the scar tissue, avoided pain. Cas’ hand closed on his right hand, making sure the keyring was secured around the middle finger there, the keys held down against the palm. More loops covered his arms, pulled his shoulder back. Dean swayed with the rhythm of the rope being loosened, knotted, pulled and cinched. It continued long after the first line had been secured, additional shorter sections being woven in, not serving any purpose that Dean could divine, so he assumed the intricate visuals were the goal in and of themselves. 

Someone, Cas, ran a hand down Dean’s chest as he kissed and nuzzled his throat. 

“You’re gorgeous like this. Being so good, so patient. Are you ready for your reward now?” 

“Please,” Dean said, and the word felt weird like his tongue and lips didn’t quite know how to shape the sounds. He didn’t know how much time had passed. 

Cas’ hands shifted, pulling him forward until he was balanced on his knees. Fear spiked for a fraction of a second. With his arms bound behind him, Dean had no way of slowing or even controlling his fall. The fear was replaced by a purr of happy contentment when he felt Cas’ chest against him, the fabric of his shirt, the sharpness of the edges of buttons. Cas had him. He held him there for a few moments, with roaming hands and a long kiss, then gently guided him down towards the bed. The sheets were cool against Dean’s forehead. Cas’ hand ran through his hair, fingers digging at the scalp, then he was gone. 

“Hum, I think…” Muse said as if she was considering a canvas or a mundane project. “Yes, like this.” 

She looped ropes around his waist, adjusting until they sat securely above the iliac crest. They crossed behind him, just shy of the swell of his ass, and she secured it to the top of the rope already on his leg. In his mind's eye, Dean could gather that it would look like garter belts, bespoke lingerie built on his body

“Very nice,” said Cas, further away then he should be. When had he stepped off the bed? Dean frowned, making the ropes shift over his eyes. His breathing was ragged and echoed in the small space between the bed and his torso. He was helpless, face down and ass up, on display with built-in handholds and no amount of practice at escaping captivity would help him here. Blood pounded in his ears, masking the sounds in the room, the madding silence of the conversation he still wasn’t a part of. The loudness of the rush surprised him. He’d have thought more blood would have been trapped south, in his aching, twitching cock. Nobody had touched him there, not once, and if Dean had been in a complaining mood he would have judged it to be incredibly unfair. 

He must have made a noise, or maybe Cas had been cheating with astral sight again, because as soon as thought rolled to the front of his brain, touches started raining down on him. Strokes, pets, fingertips up his ribs and down his legs, highlighting the exposed flesh. Palms down his chest, nails raked across nipples. Gloriously warm hands stroking his cock from root to tip and back down, smearing sticky pre-cum before disappearing. The angles kept shifting, from the back, the sides, touch coming from above and below. 

They never stayed in one place long enough for Dean to lean into. And he’d given up trying to figure out who was doing what. His skin was flush and cold in turn, negating the advantage of knowing Muse’s hands ran cooler and they both knew how to drive him crazy. Goosebumps and shivers chased each other, making Dean shake and tremble. He swallowed thickly and pressed his forehead into the bed. He wanted to beg for more, or to stop, or for it to never end, and all three at once. 

The cold drip of lube on his ass would have made him weep if it had come a minute later. Dean let out his breath in a long exhale, wishing he could widen his knees, make himself more inviting. He settled for relaxing his muscles, whimpering as the lube was rubbed into the skin around his rim, pushed inside by one of the fingers, maybe two. Then the fingers were gone, replaced by the blunt head of Cas’ cock and Dean moaned as it breached him. It was almost too good for words and not enough, too slow and gentle. 

The mattress settled and there was a hand on his shoulder, a different hand lifting his head, pushing him back so that he fucked Cas’ cock deeper into himself. The position was unstable, making Dean’s core muscle burn at the strain of keeping himself up until he gave up and sagged into the support being provided. 

The hand guiding his head moved, running a thumb across his lips and Dean opened his mouth, feeling too slack and gone to think about resisting. The thumb pressed in, petting his tongue almost. Dean closed his lips and sucked, hungry, in what he hoped would look seductive. Cas moved behind him, jostling him forward and then, hand wrapped around the ropes garters, pulling him back on his cock. 

The blindfold loosened and dropped. 

Dean tried to keep his eyes closed, but the next thrust made him gasp and blink. His vision was watery in the sudden brightness of the room. For a moment he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Castiel’s eyes were slivers of indigo around lust blown pupils, looking down on him. He’d gotten undressed at some point and the tantalizing sight of all of him made Dean whine with the desire to touch. Cas removed his thumb from Dean’s mouth and replaced it with his cock. Dean let his jaw drop as wide as he could, pulling out his tongue to cover his teeth. Cas was heavy and salty on his tongue and Dean closed his eyes around the pleasure of it. 

“No,” Cas said, almost panting. “I want your eyes on me. I want you looking at me.” 

Dean snapped his eyes open, blinking to focus on Castiel, on the play of emotions dancing beneath the lust. He knew, in the hypervigilant animal part of himself, that Muse was the one fucking him, that it was her heat on his ass and the soft swell of her breasts on his back as she bent down to bite at his shoulder. But it didn’t matter. That too was Cas. Like the ropes were Cas and the cock in his mouth. Like everything that Dean was, everything on display, everything being claimed belonged to Cas. 

His orgasm hit him, and through it, he struggled to keep his eyes open, for Cas. He didn’t know what Cas read in them, or what he saw, but he followed him over the brink with a strangled cry soon after. 

Later, after the cleanup and a change of sheets, Cas pulled Dean down to the bed. It didn’t take much convincing. Dean was pretty sure he still had bones, but they were hidden beneath the soreness and the rope marks. His skin was flushed and over-responsive, matching the happy fog of his brain.

But even physically and mentally drained it felt wrong. “No. Muse… the room.”

“I’ve cleared my evening, honey,” said Muse. “It’s all yours.”

“Crowley?” Cas asked, pragmatic. It was muffled by the skin of Dean’s neck. He had tangled their legs, draped one arm over Dean, holding him close. 

“Let me deal with him. I’m owed time off.” 

Dean mulled it over and nodded. “Ok,” he said out loud, repeating it a few times to let the sound roll. It was. And he was. They would be. 

Muse chuckled and drew a soft quilt over both of them. She kissed the top of Dean’s head, her hand under the quilt handing him something square and covered in velvet. It was scary how good she was at reading him, at digging out his secrets. Or maybe it had fallen when she’d moved his clothes. He was a bit hazy towards the end. 

The door closed behind her, locking with an electronic ping. Dean nestled against Cas’ hold, luxuriating in the skin on skin contact, too spent to want anything more. Almost. 

“Cas?” He brought his hand to cover Castiel’s over his stomach and bringing it up over his heart, instead.

“Humm?” Castiel sounded almost as tired as Dean was, peaceful.

“Yours. ‘M yours, right?”

Cas sighed and dropped kisses along his neck before answering. “Yes. All mine.”

“Be mine?” Dean asked, opening the box and pressing it into Cas’ hand. The velvet was frayed from having lived in Dean’s pockets for weeks, the corners damaged. He watched as Cas touched it for a minute that stretched forever, mapping the form of the box and of the plain titanium ring within. He shifted away from Dean, lifting on one arm to get a better look. Dean held his breath, heart hammering away, ready for the rejection. “Will you?” Dean added, in a whisper of voice, terrified that he’d made a mistake after all but desperate to prompt an answer.

“Of course,” Cas said, at length, slipping the ring over his finger. 

There. Now things were more than OK. They were perfect. Dean allowed the relief to flow through him and drag him down into sleep.


End file.
